To the Newburyport Waterfront

High-pressurized sun spreads over the harbor this morning, expanding the sky bluewards, carbonating wide open waters like sparkling champagne. Traffic over the route one bridge hums with the self-satisfaction of manifest destiny. Boats thread the narrow channel looking for a way out of that forest of aluminum masts. One boat at its mooring sends its singular wooden mast into the past attracting historical visions of clipper ships and rum. I sit forwards in a birch bark canoe paddling back to my wilderness.